A Plague of Mary Sues
by Alexandra Spar
Summary: The Decepticon base is experiencing an infestation of Mary Sues via a random plot hole, or "warp gate." Luckily for the Decepticons, the plot hole also sucks in Alex the Lab Tech.
1. Entr'acte with champagne

Disclaimer: Transformers is the property of Hasbro; Alex is the property of Alex and the British Crown.            

            Alex woke up, and wished she hadn't. The world seemed to have become a great deal colder and harder during the time she'd been out, and as her eyes managed to slide into focus, she noticed that it had also grown noticeably larger.

            Rubbing her head, she sat up. She was on the floor of a room roughly the size of a college gymnasium, windowless, without decoration save for a panel roughly halfway up one wall—she judged it to be roughly twenty feet off the ground—which looked vaguely like an intercom station. _Where the hell am I?_

            Wherever she was, it was _cold_. Her thin lab coat didn't do much against the chill, but she rolled down the sleeves and pulled it tighter anyway. The last thing she could remember was sliding her ID card in the lock to the basement labs and finding herself faced by something out of a bad sci-fi movie: a cannon-looking thing about as long as a Metro car, festooned with blinking lights and cables and things that went _ping. She remembered thinking __This isn't right, there should just be the old equipment in storage and the vending machines down here, not a giant laser, I wonder if the facilities manager knows about this? before everything went first brilliant pink and then black._

            Alex looked down at herself. If she'd been hit by a blast from that thing, she should be reduced to her constituent molecules by now; the only thing that seemed out of the ordinary was...

            Oh dear.

            She peered down the front of her shirt, and hurriedly buttoned the lab coat. _Those weren't there last time I looked. I would have noticed. _

            That explained the odd heaviness on her chest. Her shirt, a boring article of clothing with a V-neck and elbow sleeves, was now strained to bursting point over a pair of double-Ds which were causing severe structural strain to her back. She looked further down, and was not entirely surprised to find that her skirt had become six inches shorter and her shoes had turned themselves into five-inch spike heels.

            She felt gingerly at her hair, which had been twisted into a knot at the back of her head, and pulled a few strands free; the normal dishwater-blonde had gone a brilliant blinding silver. _I bet my eyes are a different colour too. Either startlingly bright green or gold._

            Getting to her feet, not wobbling at all on the ridiculous heels, she made her way over to the wall with the intercom panel on it. Either she had shrunk noticeably as well as becoming anatomically incorrect, or the individuals who had built this room stood roughly thirty feet tall. 

            As if something was listening to her inner monologue, a panel in the wall slid aside, revealing a doorway occupied by two gigantic metal...things. Robots, she assumed. They were basically bipedal, if a little angular, and festooned with unpleasantly functional-looking weaponry. They looked down at Alex with an expression normally reserved for people who have just discovered an unexpected weevil in the flour tin.

            "What the slag are _you_?" one of them asked. The voice was a male tenor, rasping as if its owner's throat was sore, and slightly petulant. He took a step forward into the room, towering over her, his wings framing him symmetrically with a rather pleasing effect.

            "I'm Alex," said Alex, craning her neck to look up at him. "What the hell are _you, and where are we, and why am I here?"_

            "It's a female humanoid," said the other giant robot, who looked a lot like his companion except for his blue paintjob. "Must be another Mary Sue."

            "Oh, _slag," said the first robot, pointing one of his arm-mounted guns at her. "Not again."_

            "Hey!" Alex backed away from the gun barrel, which was as big around as her waist. "Don't shoot me, I didn't do it, whatever it was!"

            "That's funny," said Giant Robot # 2. "It sounds different from the others. Less...squeaky."

            "I don't care," said Giant Robot # 1. "It's a squishy, and I don't want it wandering around the base. Time to exterminate." He sighted down the barrel.       

            "What the hell is a Mary Sue?" demanded Alex, backing off some more. "Where _am I?"_

            "It doesn't know," said # 2. He bent down, plucked Alex off the floor between his thumb and forefinger. She yelped, but was bright enough not to struggle; the floor was now better than twenty feet straight down. His fingers weren't squeezing her at the moment, but she was extremely aware that he could turn her midsection into pulp without trying very hard. She was lifted up level with his face, which was white, angular and currently set in an expression of mild curiosity. He didn't have eyes so much as flat glowing red panels, but she could feel him watching her. "Maybe it's not like the others. It hasn't started doing that thing where it leaks from the eyes yet."

            "I'm not an _it_," said Alex without thinking, clinging to the robot's thumb. "I'm a _she_. My name is Alexandra."

            "Are you sure?" said Robot # 1, whose red non-eyes were narrowed a little. "Not 'Princess Darkjewel' or 'Starlanna Prime'?"

            "Er, no," said Alex. "Just Alex."

            "It's definitely different," said the one who was still holding her. She was now almost ninety percent convinced that this was a dream, and therefore went ahead and said, "Hey, giant robot? I said I'm a _she_, not an _it_, and I'd really appreciate you either putting me down or letting me sit on your shoulder, because this is not doing my liver any good at all."

            Giant Robot # 2 stared at her, and then, amazingly, chuckled. "It...she...has a death wish," he remarked, but nevertheless set her down on his shoulder, where she scrambled into the shelter of one of the weird air intake-thingies framing his face. Having something to hang on to gave her a sense of security, despite the fact that he could easily drop her if he shrugged.

            "What's your name?" she asked, throwing caution to the winds. "I can't just keep saying 'giant robot number two,' it sounds dumb."

            He peered at her, red eye-things somehow managing to look thoughtful. "I'm Thundercracker," he said. "This is Starscream. We're Decepticons."

            "Oh, wonderful," the other one complained. "Tell it all about us, why don't you? Come on, let me shoot it."

            "Not until we find out how she got here," said Thundercracker, the vibrations of his voice making Alex's teeth buzz. "If she's _not_ like the other Mary Sues, then there might be something else at work here."

            "What's a Mary Sue?" she asked again. 

            "You look like one," Thundercracker told her. "At least your physical construction is similar to the other ones. Your, ah, torso."

            "Oh," said Alex, having a nasty feeling that she was going pink. "Right. I'm not normally like this. I don't wear these shoes, for one thing, and I wouldn't be caught dead at work in a skirt this short."

            Robot Number 1—Starscream—stared at her, fingering his chin. "It certainly doesn't talk like the others," he mused. "I suppose you'd better take it to Megatron."

            Alex sighed. "What's a Megatron?"

            "You'll see," said Starscream, with a nasty smile. He turned and walked out of the room. After a moment Thundercracker, with Alex still clinging to his air-intake cowling, followed.

            It was an odd sensation. Despite their mass, the robots moved remarkably smoothly, and the impact of Thundercracker's feet hitting the floor didn't do much more than jar her slightly. She concentrated on staying where she was and not looking down as they passed through several corridors—all of them vast, shiny and cold—and eventually entered another huge room. This one could have fit a good-sized football stadium in it, if you took out all the giant shiny consoles and screens and things that probably went _ping_. Several more giant robots were sitting at the consoles and fiddling with things, but Thundercracker and Starscream (she couldn't help laughing silently at the names, despite the fact that at least one of them wanted to kill her) made straight for the central screen and the robot who was standing in front of it.

            This one had his back to them. He (she assumed it was a he, like the others) was done in tasteful shades of white and grey, and featured a cannon the size of the thing she'd found in the basement lab on one arm. He was also a little bit taller than either of the two she'd met so far, which added to the air of menace hanging about him. 

            "_That's a Megatron," said Starscream to her very quietly, before approaching the white robot with a large false grin. "Mighty leader," he said, his voice subtly more annoying, "we have captured another humanoid intruder."_

            Megatron turned round slowly, and Alex found herself clinging to the edge of her air-intake cowling with white knuckles. _He looks like the Sphinx_, she thought. Narrow red eyes regarded her with undisguised malice, from a face that was all sharp angles and steep planes under its sculptured helmet. From this angle, the cannon-thing decorating his right arm looked roughly the size of a nuclear submarine.

            "Thundercracker," he said, icily. "What is the humanoid doing on your shoulder?"

            Her captor wisely said nothing, allowing Megatron to reach out with an enormous steel hand and pick her out of the cowling. Behind him, Starscream's grin turned into a real one, clearly expecting her to be summarily executed. Megatron tilted his hand palm-upwards, and opened his fingers. She staggered forward and sat down in a hurry, legs dangling beside his thumb. As Thundercracker had, he brought her closer, red eyes boring into her. It was beginning to become clear that, if this was a dream, it was an incredibly lucid one. 

            "I say we kill it," said Starscream. Megatron's expression didn't change; he continued to look at her as if she were a mildly interesting cockroach.

            "Look," she said, hanging on to his thumb, "I don't want to be here. I don't know how I got here in the first place, and I don't know why I look like this—this is _not my body—or why you all think I'm something called a Mary Sue. I just want to go home, all right?"_

            "Where did you come from, human?" asked Megatron, still looking down his nose at her.

            "The basement of my building," she said crossly. "I had gone down to get a candy bar out of the vending machine on my coffee break, and the damn vending machines had disappeared and been replaced with some kind of giant lasery thing, and there was a big pink flash. That's it. Then I was here."

            Megatron frowned. "You didn't get sucked into a swirling vortex of terror?"

            "Not that I recall," she said. "And my name is Alex, by the way, not 'human.'" 

            "Do not talk back to the Leader," snapped Starscream, emphasizing the first syllable of the title a little too much. 

            "Shut up, Starscream." Megatron continued to stare at her, although the mild disgust in the stare seemed to have been replaced with curiosity. "No vortex of terror, no falling into a swoon of delirious fear, no being drawn through a portal by the need of a stranger?"

            "What the hell are you talking about?" she demanded. 

            "You can't talk to us like that!"

            "Shut up, Starscream." 

            Alex had the feeling that this exchange wasn't uncommon around these parts. Megatron looked over her head at Thundercracker, who hadn't moved since she'd been plucked off his shoulder. "She's not like the others," he said.

            Thundercracker inclined his head. "I know. And neither I nor Starscream seem to have been affected by her presence."

            "That much is obvious," said Megatron with distaste. "You're not reciting bad poetry or flopping about with attitudes of tragic lovestruck despair." He set Alex down on the edge of the console. "We'll keep her for the time being," he announced, "until we can analyze her to find out what kind of warp brought her here."

            "Are you sure that's wise, Megatron?"

            "Shut up, Starscream, and go prepare the scanners."

            Alex sat down, hugging her knees to her chest to try and conserve heat. The ridiculous breasts made this more difficult than it should have been. She watched the blue-white-and-red robot stalk away with an air of maltreated exasperation.

            "Scanners," she muttered. Visions of horrific alien abductions flickered through her mind. "What sort of scanners?"

            Nobody was listening. She hugged her knees closer and rested her chin on them, wondering if she'd ever see her nice, normal, boring lab again.

            In a few minutes Starscream came back into the room, still looking as if someone had taken the last cookie out of the cookie jar before he could steal it for himself, and picked her up off the console. "You watch what you say, human," he snarled, holding her between thumb and forefinger as if she was coated in something unpleasant. "I am not as merciful as Megatron."

            She was being squeezed hard enough to make any response impossible, merely nodding. He carried her at arm's length out of the control room, down another corridor, and into yet another giant echoing steel room. This one featured a _lot more scary equipment, including (she was interested to note) giant glass beakers bubbling with glowing blue and pink liquids, and a gigantic microscope of some kind. Starscream dumped her unceremoniously on the stage of this last, and flicked a few switches. _

            Alex curled up, gasping, trying to get some air back into her lungs. By the time she could breathe again, something was happening all around her; the stage of the alien microscope dealie had begun to glow an unpleasant shade of yellow. Starscream moved away from the console and began typing something into a computer terminal.

            _Oh boy, she thought. __Well, this isn't the stupidest way to die I've ever heard of, but it's got to be one of the weirdest._

            And then there was nothing at all left to think.

            "I really think you should just let me destroy it," Starscream said some time later, leaning against the console with his arms folded and facing his leader. Megatron, fingers steepled, was ignoring him, as usual. "I mean, it's a squishy. So what if it's not one of the Mary Sues?"

            "Shut up, Starscream," said Megatron automatically. "Hmm. Perhaps it would be educational for us to observe the Alex interacting with the real Mary Sues. Clearly the behavioural patterns are different, but we don't know how the Mary Sue species responds to non-Mary-Sue female humanoids. All the literature on them suggests they prey specifically on males."

            "Why are you so interested in the slagging Mary Sues? I could've taken care of them with a single clusterbomb!"

            "Starscream, have you ever, even once, thought before shooting something? If we destroy all our test subjects, we won't have any way of gathering information on them, and we won't be able to come up with a way to fight back." Megatron got up. "Go polish your wings, or something. You bore me."

            Seething, Starscream turned on his heel and strode away. The Decepticon leader smiled to himself, the sort of smile generally seen on great white sharks just before they burst out of the water and bite helicopters in half.

            When Alex woke up for the second time, her first thought was _Oh, no, not this bloody dream again, but she became aware very quickly that things weren't quite as they had been. They were softer, for one thing. She sat up and looked around._

            "Oh my Christ," she said after a minute. She wasn't alone, but the things she was sharing this...cage, she realized after a moment...with weren't giant robots. For a moment she thought they were animated Barbies, but realized that even in the dim dead days of the 1980s Barbies tended not to have floor-length multicoloured hair. They were dressed in extremely impractical clothing which featured spike heels, large amounts of cleavage, and the sort of blast armor which left large areas of chest, midsection and thigh totally unprotected. One or two of them were wearing lab coats similar to her own, and in the corner the one with frothy pink hair was dressed in a diaphanous flowing thing which wouldn't have been out of place in _Dracula_. 

            "What _are you?" she breathed. As one, the impossibly lovely women turned to stare at her. Pair after pair of enormous, brilliant eyes gave her the once-over; after a moment, every single one of them started twirling a lock of hair around her index finger. _

            "We are prisoners," said the closest one, whose skin was the colour of fresh cream and whose hair was a vivid unnatural red. Her eyes, predictably, were pools of emerald mystery. "I am Princess Aurelianis of the Vircanii." 

            _Cute voice, thought Alex, __if you're an anime heroine. Her own voice was low and unmusical in comparison. "You're the Mary Sues," she said as realization dawned. "What did you _do_ to them? They talk as if you're some kind of dangerous infestation."_

            "Alas," said Princess Aurelianis, "I know not why they have cast us into durance vile. We were all drawn here by some mysterious force which tore us from our homelands and cast us into this strange world of steel and excitingly romantic danger."

            "Not a big laser thing which flashed pink?"

            "It was a swirling vortex of terror," said the Princess, sounding a little miffed. "Where are you from, sister? What is your homeworld?"

            "Earth," said Alex evenly. "My name is Alex, and I'm a lab technician."

            "You're not a healer?" asked one of the other lab-coated beauty queens. "We're all healers, as well as warriors, scholars, linguists and fighter pilots. Do you know kung fu?"

            "No, but if you hum a couple bars I'll pick it up," said Alex absently. "I can do you a mean real-time PCR cycle, though."

            "What is this Pee See Are?"

            "Polymerase chain reaction. Science," she added, with air quotes. Their faces brightened. 

            "Ah, you are a scientist, of course! You must be able to use your genius-level scientific knowledge to heal as well as to defend!"

            Alex manufactured a grin. "Of course," she said. _These bints are insane._ "What did you think of the Decepticons?"

            There was a collective sigh. Mary Sue after Mary Sue clasped her hands at her considerable bosom. Alex stared. 

            "Megatron's so _handsome_," one of them (black hair and blue eyes) said. Her neighbor (purple hair and eyes) glared.

            "Starscream's better-looking. And cleverer."

            "Megatron!"

            "Starscream!"

            "Thundercracker," said another woman (green hair and blue eyes). "I can't bear being apart from him. He completes me."

            "Er," said Alex, raising a finger. "He's a thirty-foot-tall alien robot. You're a—" she estimated—"five-foot-four humanoid female. Does anyone besides me see the problem here?"

            Thundercracker's admirer sighed again and pressed her hands to her heart, or where it presumably was underneath the mountains of breast. "Love will find a way," she said, dreamily.

            "Okay, that's it, I'm gonna puke."

            "Oh, are you ill?" asked one of the Mary Sues, concernedly. "We can help. Generally we only minister to gorgeous men who refuse to admit their vulnerability, but I suppose we can make an exception in your case. After all, there's nothing wrong with needing help, even if you are an independent woman who doesn't need to rely on other people."

            Alex stared at her. "Uh, no thanks," she said. "A momentary lapse. Look, what is it that you people _do_? On your respective planets, that is."

            She wished she hadn't asked. One after one, the women explained their roles as master healers, instructors in the martial arts, professors of science, ninth-level practitioners of magic, makeup artists, musicians, fashion designers, aerospace engineers, and bestselling authors. Alex wondered vaguely how anyone else on their planets ever got to do anything.

            "But," said Princess Aurelianis, sweetly, "what we love most is to help others. This is why we feel we were drawn here. They need our help."

            "To do what exactly?"

            "To find their inner peace," said another Mary Sue, pinning her brilliant pink curls into a careless knot. "They are tormented souls. They need love."

            "Love," repeated Alex.

            "And care. They run themselves ragged, you know. They deny they're in pain, but we feel it. We're all T1 empaths, by the way."

            "Good for you." Alex got up and stretched. "Er, do any of you have any more, um, concealing clothing? I'm freezing."

            "Concealing?" asked a green-haired kung fu expert. "What do you mean?"

            "As in, not showing quite so much pale goose-pimpled flesh."

            "Ah, you mean "seductively mysterious."

            "Whatever."

            There was a pause. Eventually a blonde Mary Sue at the back of the room came forward bashfully. "I'm only a seventh-level judo expert," she admitted, "and I'm still in final training at the Academy of Medical Arts, but my advisors say I'm doing extremely well."

            "Excellent," said Alex, hands on hips. The blonde proffered something small and black, which she took, and after some experimentation determined that it was a unitard of some kind. She pulled off her lab coat and stepped out of her skirt, causing every other Mary Sue in the vicinity to turn away, aghast. Unconcernedly she pulled off the shirt, which ripped itself directly down the middle as she tried to ease it over her monstrous knockers, and slipped into the blonde's garment. Naturally it stretched to accommodate her new curves, and—looking at herself in the reflective plastic wall of their prison—she had to admit she looked all right. The material was unreflective, managing to play down her more ridiculous assets, and it was much warmer than her shirt and skirt had been. She slipped the lab coat on over the unitard and shoved her hands into its familiar pockets, pleased to note that her pipetter head and her collection of pens had survived the journey into this world. Her hair was still ferociously tied and pinned into its knot. She had no intention of letting its silvery glory free. 

            Astonishingly, the blonde also had a pair of ordinary boots to offer—ordinary in that they only had a three, not a six, inch heel. Alex gratefully slipped her feet into them and tossed her discarded stripper shoes aside. "Thank you," she said. "What's your name?  
            "Er," said the blonde. "Linda."

            "Linda."

            "Yes, it's not very good, is it? I'm going to change it to Moonstrike Brightblade when I graduate, of course."

            "Of course," said Alex, sighing. Linda seemed as if she might conceivably have more than sixteen brain cells to her name, but she was already well on the road to ruin. 

            Across the room, outside their enclosure, the door whished open. Alex recognized the white-and-grey _eminence_ that was Megatron, and thought fast. 

            As the giant robot approached, she struck a pose of what she considered urgent yet sexy importance. "Look, my sisters!" she cried. "Over there! A man who needs your help! No one else can save him!"

            As one, the Mary Sues flocked to the other corner of the cage, fighting with each other to get close to their imaginary patient. Alex was left standing on her own, hands on her hips, watching them with a mixture of horror and amusement.

            An enormous black hand on the end of a rectangular white forearm descended and picked her out of the cage. She found herself once more sitting on Megatron's palm, this time much more comfortably. "Hello," she said.

            "How did you do that?" he demanded. "Normally I have to shake them off my fingers!"

            "I'm extremely clever." Alex looked over his thumb at the Mary Sues, who were still fighting one another in their effort to get closer to the corner she had indicated. "Look, what on earth are you keeping them for? Why don't you just send them back to Happy Moron Land?"

            Megatron narrowed his glowing red eyes, but she refused to flinch. "I've tried," he rasped. "Besides, they're a danger to my Decepticons. I have to study them to find their weakness before I destroy them."

            "Their _weakness is that they're idiots," she said._

            "In a way." Megatron turned, carrying her away from the cage. "However, they have an extremely strong effect on my warriors."

            "What...sort of effect?"

            "I expect you can guess,"said Megatron. She thought for a moment.

            "Oh dear. You don't mean that you giant robots....fall prey to their ideas? You become what they want you to be?"

            "_Yes," said Megatron. "Last time a Mary Sue arrived we had Starscream malingering for weeks—coughing miserably and complaining that he was too weak and feverish to get up and fight—just so that the little female squishy would sit beside him and 'comfort' him."_

            "You're robots. You can't get fevers. You don't breathe. Why would he be coughing?" She ignored the "squishy" comment.

            "Exactly!" Megatron gestured with his free hand, turning left along the corridor. "It's completely illogical!"

            "Besides, Starscream kept threatening to kill me," she pointed out.

            "Yes, because I put him on waste-disposal duty for a month after that episode," said Megatron. "I believe he learned his lesson."

            "Ah," said Alex. "Well...what are you going to do with them?"

            "I was hoping you could help with that," said the white robot. "In terms of finding out how to defeat them."

            "Common sense seems to work. Oh, and they don't like female nudity."

            Megatron paused for a moment, and she could almost see his thought processes before he decided to discard what he'd just heard. "We've found out how you got here," he said, a little brightly. "It was a similar warping to the ones that have brought the Mary Sues here."

            "It was a giant laser cannon," said Alex flatly. "They all said they fell into some sort of romantic horror vortex thing."

            "I know," said Megatron. "However, the ion signatures we retrieved from you and from the room where you apparently arrived are almost identical to those we found on the Mary Sues. You may not have come from the same place, but you got here through the same hole."

            "Oh," said Alex. "Any chance you can send me home?"

            "Not until you find a way to stop those wretched females affecting my warriors," said Megatron coldly. "If you don't agree to help us, I'll be happy to put you straight back in the cage with them."

            "Hey, hey," said Alex hurriedly. "Did I say anything about not wanting to help you? I'm your grade two lab technician."

            "Very well," said Megatron. "What do you require?"

            "I _require a bloody thermal blanket," said Alex, "and maybe some food. And a jeroboam of Veuve Clicquot. And a carton of Camel Lights."_

            Megatron set her down on a large metal table. They seemed to be in the lab she'd passed out in, the one with the massive microscope assembly. "As you wish," he said. "Human concessions will be sent for. In the meantime, why don't you get to work?"

            She was doing a complicated dance on the giant keyboard when one of the robots entered the lab, carrying something wrapped in white cloth. The computer program was extremely simple, dating back to BASIC, and she was able to put in a few very boring programs to run sums and calculate probability curves for her ideas, but it was jolly hard on the thighs. Each key was about a foot square, and even with the fragment of a glass stirring rod she'd found, it was difficult to type by doing Irish step-dancing. She reached the end of the line and hopped off the keyboard to look up at the robot. This was one she hadn't met before.

            "Human food as required," it..._he_...said in a toneless, overprocessed voice. She regarded him thoughtfully. He looked rather like a big navy-blue Walkman with legs, if you added a head and a dark-blue pepper mill on one shoulder.

            "Thanks," she said amiably, as he set his bundle down on the table and unwrapped it. It turned out to be a fully-set banquet table for about thirty people, complete with large roast turkey, multiple side dishes, and what remained of quite a nice dinner service. He fumbled by his side and produced a bottle of champagne which, while it looked like a toy in his enormous fingers, reached to Alex's waist. She looked up at him in admiration. "My God," she said. "Thank you."

            The giant robot nodded, then fumbled a bit more and produced a tan-and-white package scarcely the length of his last little finger knuckle. Alex seized it. "I didn't expect this," she said. "Tell Megatron I'm very grateful. And can I get some source of fire in here?"

            The robot inclined his head and stalked off again. Alex ripped the cellophane off the carton of Camels and extracted a pack. She stuffed it down her cleavage and walked over to the massive bottle of what turned out to be, rather than Veuve Clicquot, Krug. "Shit," she said, well aware that the bottle would have bought a laptop easily. "Maybe I won't leave after all."

            Some time later, Starscream came into the lab, still trailing a thundercloud. Alex was perched crosslegged on the table, eating stolen turkey in an industrious sort of way, cigarette sending a delicate line of pale blue smoke into the air. She looked up as he approached, and waved the cigarette at him amiably. He scowled.

            "You haven't registered any fluctuations in the energy signatures around here, have you?" he demanded.

            Alex swallowed. "Not as such, no. Your power consumption is something extraordinary, though. I mean, what sort of generator do you have to keep this place running?"

            "That is none of your concern, human," he retorted, scrolling through her makeshift computer programs. "Damn."

            "What?" Alex chained another cigarette and walked over to the keyboard. Starscream was scowling at the screen with such vitriol that she half expected to see two smoking holes appear on its surface. She found what he was looking at.  "Oh, hell, what does that mean?"

            "It means," said Starscream, "that something else has come through the same warp which brought you here." He straightened up and made to leave.

            "Hey, hang on," Alex called. "Take me with you. I might be able to get some information out of whoever it is."

            Starscream glared at her. She shrugged. "Look, if it's another Mary Sue, I know how to deal with them."

            "So do I," he said, running a finger down one of his arm-rifles. "Very well. But don't get in the way."

            "Wouldn't dream of it," she said, and clambered up his arm to sit in the shelter of his left air-scoop, cigarette clamped in the corner of her mouth. He stalked out of the lab, managing to convey disgust at her presence with every step. She sat back, comfortably, and blew smoke rings.

            The room where she'd found herself originally was not noticeably improved by the addition of a six-foot platinum blonde with tits which apparently defied the laws of gravity. She was wearing a black PVC outfit festooned with buttons and zippers and buckles, a matched pair of shiny silver blasters, and a pair of thigh-high heeled boots. Her large eyes were a peculiar shade of violet.

            Alex stared down at her. She felt Starscream shudder slightly, and peered out of the air-intake; his red eyes had gone dull, and he was shaking a bit. "Hey," she said. "Starscream."

            He staggered backwards and fell with a clang against the wall, almost dislodging Alex, who yelled and clung to the edge of the cowling. The woman-thing tilted her head and advanced on them, hands open in greeting. As Starscream slid down the wall to sit in a gigantic metal heap on the floor, Alex clambered down from his shoulder and hopped free. 

            "Who're you?" she demanded, and chained another cigarette. The blonde looked down at her from her lofty heels.

            "I am Lady Darktalon," she said, in a voice like wet silk over smooth slate. "Is your companion ill?"

            "No," said Alex firmly. "How'd you get here?"

            Lady Darktalon thrust out a hip and shook her hair out of her face. "I was on a routine secret mission to destroy the evil force of the warlord Nentar, when all of a sudden I became aware of a force calling to me."

            "Let me guess," said Alex, ignoring Starscream moaning behind her. "You were drawn into a vortex of mysterious danger by the desperate need of someone beyond the world divide?"

            Lady Darktalon scowled at her. "Who are you, little woman?" she asked.

            "Alex," said Alex, and exhaled through her nose. "And no, I don't know kung fu, nor do I have advanced doctorates in several different fields, and I certainly don't have mystical telepathic powers, just so's you know."

            "What is your purpose, then?" asked the Mary Sue, looking over Alex's head at the limp form of Starscream. "I really think your companion is in need of aid."

            "No he isn't," said Alex automatically. Starscream groaned and began to cough weakly. "Oh, good grief, this is ridiculous," she added, stalking over to him. "Stop that."

            Starscream's eyes flickered a little. "So...weak..." he muttered. "Can't....see..."

            "Can't do a very good Shatner impression, either," said Alex. "Get up and secure the intruder."

            He just groaned. Lady Darktalon pushed past Alex and knelt down beside Starscream's face, which was now at ground level. "Relax," she said gently. "I will help you."

            The Decepticon coughed some more. Alex thought absently that he must be channeling Chopin. "Who...?" he managed. Lady Darktalon put a slender hand on his shoulder.

            "You mustn't talk," she said. "I shall summon my magical healing powers to help you."

            "Don't...leave me..." Starscream groaned.

            "I'm here," the Mary Sue comforted him. 

            "You're...so beautiful...."

            Alex fought down an urge to retch. _What I need now is a folding chair_, she thought, and stepped back a bit from the touching tableau. She nearly fell over something.

            _That's funny._

_            Er...what I need now is a pair of really cool sunglasses._

The room went suddenly darker. She felt a lightweight frame settle on the bridge of her nose. Life suddenly had become a great deal more interesting.

            "I will ease your pain," the Mary Sue announced, and rose to her feet, placing her fingertips to her temples. "_Ast tasarak sinuralan krynawi....ast kiranann kair..._"

            _WHANNGGGGGG._

            Alex put down the folding chair as Lady Darktalon crumpled to the floor. The faint strains of music that had been filling the air cut off suddenly. 

            Starscream sat up, rubbing his head. "What the slag happened?" he demanded, his voice back to its normal rasping petulance. "Who's that?"

            "Lady Darktalon," said Alex, nudging the fallen Mary Sue with her boot. "She was just about to heal you of your sudden attack of pneumonia."

            "My _what?" Starscream demanded, sounding revolted. Alex chuckled. _

            "You don't remember? You collapsed and started to cough and talk...like...this."

            Starscream covered his face with his hands. "Not _again_," he said, sounding pained. She sighed.

            "Never mind, it's over now. I expect you'll want to put Lady Darktalon with her colleagues."

            Starscream looked down at her. "You stopped it."

            "I hit her over the head with a folding chair, yes."

            He narrowed his eyes. "Thank you," he said. 

            "Hell, you could have stepped on her, if you hadn't been under her thrall. Come on, I want to get back to my dinner." She climbed up one of his arm-rifles and took up her position on his shoulder. "Hurry, before she comes to."

            Starscream picked up the limp form of the Mary Sue and examined her. "I don't think she's going to wake up that quickly," he said. "Where did you get the chair?"

            "I don't know," she admitted. "I just thought, hey, I need a folding chair, and there it was. Same with the shades."

            He dropped Lady Darktalon and plucked her off his shoulder. "You're one of them!" he hissed, staring at her in horror. "You're able to magically make things appear!"

            "Put me _down," she said, wriggling. "Are you strangely attracted to me?"_

            "No!"

            "Are you suddenly filled with the desire to have me take care of you?"

            "No!"

            "Are you smitten with my beauty and capability and power?"

            "No!"

            "Then I'm not one of them," she said. "Do you mind? My internal organs are very crushable."

            Starscream continued to stare at her for a moment before letting her scramble back up his arm. "You're sure?"

            "I'm sure," she said, settling back into his air intake and lighting another cigarette. He picked up the Mary Sue and got to his feet, wordlessly, and deposited her in the cage with the others before returning Alex to the lab.  She clambered back to the table and returned to the turkey carcass. "This is good. Where'd you lot steal it from?"

            Starscream ignored her, standing there with his arms folded and staring into space. She poured herself another glass of Krug and sat down, crosslegged, regarding the giant robot. _I could kind of get to like it here,_ she thought, _if they keep providing this kind of rations. And if I could get some human-sized furnishings. Like maybe a bed._

            "You're immune to them," said Starscream suddenly.

            "Mmff?" She swallowed.

            "To the Mary Sues. They don't affect you."

            "I'm a human female. The only interactions they'd have with me would be designed to show off how clever and multitalented they are compared to me."

            Starscream sat down, which was helpful, since now his face was only fifteen or so feet above her. "I don't understand you."  

            "Nobody does. I'm like the wind, baby," she said, and sipped champagne.

            "Huh?"

            "Nothing. Earth TV." Alex licked her fingers. "Is there something I can help you with?"

            "What?" he asked, distractedly.

            "You're just sitting there and staring at me, and I know you're not doing it out of interest. You don't even _like_ me. So, what are you going to ask, so that I can answer it and you can go away."

            Starscream frowned down at her. "How do we get rid of the Mary Sues?" he asked. 

            "I expect you can shoot them, or step on them, or dip them in acid, or remove their arms and legs and watch them bleed to death," she said, taking another bite. "You were the one who wanted to shoot me, remember?"

            Starscream ignored this. "But they're going to keep showing up," he said. "Whatever warp gate keeps dropping them off in our storage room is still open."

            "Well," she said, "in that case, why don't you just seal off the storage room?"

            "What, and have it explode in a few months when the pressure is too great for the walls to withstand it?" he retorted. She had a sudden mental image of a compressed wad of Mary Sues exploding out of the storage room, and suppressed a giggle. 

            "Okay, okay, bad idea. You could put a big vat of acid in the room and just leave them to it."

            "Not bad," he admitted. "Although perhaps a video tracking system connected to an autogun would be more efficient."

            "Hell, just put a bear trap on the floor. If they all come through in the exact same place, it should be easy enough just to put some sort of extermination device there and forget about it."

            Starscream tapped his fingers on the edge of the bench, causing a plate to fall off the purloined table and shatter. "Where do they all come from?" he wondered.

            "Beats me. Really awful stories, perhaps."

            "That's it!" He thumped the countertop. Alex had to leap over to rescue the champagne bottle. "They're creatures of the imagination! Only somehow they've been given physical forms."

            "If you say so," Alex yawned. "What's the plan?"

            Starscream sighed. "I'm sure Megatron already has one," he said. "And, as usual, it's going to be up to me to point out the flaws in his logic." He got up, looking slightly puzzled, and put his hand to his throat. 

            "What is it?"

            "Nothing," he said after a moment, and left the room.

            Alex reflected that, for a giant robot, he was remarkably moody. She yanked the tablecloth from under the remains of the place settings (after some inspection, it turned out that the table and its burdens had been taken from the Plaza Hotel), rolled herself up in it like a blanket, and curled up beside the keyboard. It had been a very long day.


	2. Sgt Exposition and Captain Plot Point

More of it!

Alex the Mary Sue is displayed in all her pneumatic glory at . It's only a black-and-white pic, but damn, does she ever have improbable breasts. Megs frowning at her is in the process of being coloured.

Disclaimer: Transformers is the property of Hasbro, yadda yadda yadda, yesssss.

            "Well? It's been almost two weeks. How's your plan going?"

            "Pretty well," said Wheeljack, adjusting a few knobs on the housing of a cylindrical laser housing. It took up most of the space in his lab and was very, very shiny.

            Ratchet, hands on hips, circled the machine. "I have to admit we haven't seen much Decepticon activity since you turned this thing on."

            "Heh," Wheeljack muttered. "Last time I caught sight of a Decepticreep, he was peering in the window of a Godiva shop in New York, looking confused. I can't think why nobody did this before."

            "Tell me again," said the Autobot medic, "exactly how it works."

            Wheeljack stared at him. Ratchet grinned a little. "This is called "exposition," he said. "Saves the narration the bother of showing rather than telling."

            "Oh, well, in that case," said Wheeljack, glancing around in case there was a fourth wall anywhere in the vicinity, "this little baby is something I like to call 'The Sappivator.'"

            "Any relation to the Negavator?" inquired Ratchet.

            "No, I just like putting "vator" on the ends of words, it makes them sound all futuristic and science-y. The Sappivator works by zeroing in on the nexi of imagination."

            "Come again?"

            "Common thoughts. Like, okay, say you're a mildly illiterate fangirl."

            Ratchet tried to picture this. "Okaaaay."

            "So you write unreadable dreck about how your original female character, a poorly disguised self-insertion with magical powers and omnicompetence and the physical characteristics of a Barbie, enters the story-world and Saves the Day."

            "I think I'm getting a migraine," said Ratchet. "What does all this have to do with the Decepticons?"

            Wheeljack's voice held a grin. "Don't you see? One of the major targets of these self-insertions—they're called Mary Sues—has always been the charismatic villain. And we've got a bunch of them to choose from."

            "Wait," said Ratchet. "You're saying this cannon thing is able to track these...these figments of some teenybopper's imagination?"

            "_And turn them into real beings," said Wheeljack triumphantly. "My Sappivator is capable of producing as many Mary Sues as there are people inventing them. And they're inventing them __all the time."_

            "But what's to stop them attacking us?" Ratchet wanted to know.

            "Oh, we're much too clever to be vulnerable to them," Wheeljack assured him. "No, they're only a threat to the Decepticons."

            Ratchet was staring at the engineer, a look of surprised consideration in his optics. 

"What?" Wheeljack demanded.

            "This has to be the first invention of yours that actually worked straight off the bat," said Ratchet. "Well done, man."

            Wheeljack scowled. "Well, there was a weird instance recently where it blinked into and out of reality, but I'm sure it was nothing. Eddies in the space-time continuum."

            "He is?"

            "That wasn't funny the last ten times you said it."

            "Sorry."

            Alex jerked awake out of a complicated dream featuring stylized symbols resembling red faces and giant cannons which flared pink and then black. "Oh, _fuck," she said. Her watch had stopped sometime since she last looked at it; she had no idea how long it had been since she'd fed the cells in their growth media, and she was damn sure no one had decided to run her gels for her out of the goodness of their hearts. __There's a week's worth of prep thrown away, she thought. _If I ever get back I'm going to be lucky if I keep my job.__

            _If I ever get back._

            She rolled over and pulled the tablecloth tighter around her shoulders. It was so bloody cold in here that her toes had gone numb; she assumed it was because the robots, like supercomputers, generated a lot of heat, and needed their environment to be airconditioned.  After a few moments, her brain kicked in, and she thought deliberately _What__ would be really useful at this juncture is a massive four-poster bed with a feather mattress and a fur coverlet, as well as something warm to put over this stupid catsuit thing._

Almost immediately she felt her hipbone and shoulder sink into the delicious softness of a featherbed, and she was surrounded in a cocoon of softness and warmth. _I could get used to this, she thought, and then deliberately __I want a million dollars._

            Nothing happened. She sighed. Maybe it had to be something she actually needed. She'd have to work on that.

            Meanwhile, she drifted back to sleep. The lights in the lab had been dimmed, which she assumed meant that the giant alien robots were on the downside of their daily cycle. Hopefully she'd be able to get used to this, or escape, before her circadian rhythms were completely deranged.

            Wheeljack looked over at the Sappivator. The red telltales glittering along its barrel had shifted to yellow; as he watched, they shifted again, to green. "Heh," he said to himself. "I wonder what's coming through this time?"

            There was a feeling of barely controlled electricity flickering through the air, a sensation of pressure, and then the Sappivator flared briefly pink and faded back to its normal steel colour. Wheeljack hurried over to his consoles and tried to find out what it had brought through this time.

            "Oh, sweet lovin' Primus," he breathed. "This is going to be _priceless." He hurried out of the lab and up to the control room, passing several astonished Autobots, and skidded to a halt behind Prime's command chair facing Teletran One. "Prime," he said, his ears flashing pink with the force of his enthusiasm. "Can you get a direct video feed from Decepticon headquarters?"_

            Prime stared at him, giving the impression of having raised an eyebrow, despite his lack of any such facial adornment. "What's going on, Wheeljack?" he wanted to know.

            "Trust me," said the engineer, "you are going to want to see this."

            The Autobot leader turned back to the console and called up all the active spy satellites in the vicinity. Out in space, one of them turned suddenly, attitudinal jets firing, and refocused itself on a specific area of the ocean. A blurred reading came up on Teletran One's screens, which zoomed in and began to take on some detail. They could make out the main control room of the Decepticon base. "Wheeljack," said Prime, staring at the screen, "what are you on about? I t looks perfectly normal to me."

            "Watch," said Wheeljack, pointing past Prime's shoulder. Ratchet, Tracks, Ironhide and Prowl had joined them, wondering what all the drama was about. On the screen, something approached the main control console of the Decepticon base. There was a stunned pause, and then Ratchet started to laugh.

            "What _is that thing?" he managed, through the laughter. Wheeljack turned to him, hands on hips. _

            "That," he said, "is the downfall of our Decepticon friends. Once their optics get a load of her, we won't have _any more trouble with them."_

            "It looks like a femmebot," said Ironhide, thoughtfully. "One hell of a femmebot."

            "I wonder what she turns into," said Tracks, not looking away from the screen. "Got to be something _fast_."

            "Hey, hey, hey, don't get too interested," said Wheeljack. Prime was regarding the screen, arms folded, with an attitude of concern mingled with interest. "What d'you think, Prime?"

            "It's certainly powerful," said Optimus Prime. "I take it this is the result of your experiments with transducing nexuses of the imagination into physical format?"

            "Yep. They're vulnerable to the humanoid females produced by most minds, but this...well, this is something quite new. I doubt even Megatron will be able to withstand the power of this particular construct."

            "What about that strange fluctuation we registered a day or so ago? You complained that your experimental machinery flickered in and out of reality."

            "Ah, that was just a power surge," said Wheeljack, shrugging. "Nothing to worry about."

            "It brought something through, right?" said Ratchet, behind them. Wheeljack shot him an annoyed look. 

            "I expect it was just another nexus," he said. "The energy signatures I've been getting are consistent with another imaginatory individual."

            Prime frowned, fingering his chin. "Is there any way your machine could have popped an extant physical being into the Decepticon headquarters?"

            Ratchet turned to Wheeljack expectantly. The engineer shrugged.

            "Maybe. I never considered that particular use for the Sappivator, but theoretically it could occur."

            "So, in effect, we could use it as a way to introduce a spy—or a saboteur—into their base?" asked Prowl.

            Wheeljack nodded. "I think it could be done."

            Prime got up. "I want you to keep a very close eye on what goes through your Sappivator," he said. "A very close eye indeed. I have a bad feeling about this."

            "Yes, Prime," said Wheeljack, sighing. 

            **

            Alex rolled over and yawned, rubbing at her eyes. The feather bed and its massive canopy seemed to have stayed perfectly real and solid during the time she wasn't concentrating on them, which was a pleasant thought. 

            She slid out of bed and stretched. Something furry was draped over the Plaza Hotel dining-room table; she picked it up, apprehensively, and found that it seemed to be a full-length blue fox coat, suitable for keeping humanoids warm in the forty-degree environment of the Decepticon base. _Excellent, she thought. _Whatever's providing me with what I need has excellent tastes in obnoxiously expensive things. I hope it's me.__

            Shrugging into the fur, she looked around. The lights were back to normal, so she assumed it was what passed for day in this place. No one was around. She checked the computers, and found that something noticeable had happened to the energy flows in the area. Something else must've come through the warp hole, or whatever the hell it was. She sighed, imagining another Lady Darktalon, or Princess Moonstrike, or whatever. Presumably either the Decepticons didn't know about it yet or they were dealing with it without her help. She wondered vaguely what she was supposed to be doing.

            Lighting a cigarette, she did an ungainly jig on the keyboard to bring up whatever information she could find about the Decepticon base itself. She almost fell off the keyboard when the screen started scrolling information past her, and had to back off a little and apply herself to the Krug bottle before it started to make sense.

            She was _under the sea. About fifty fathoms down, to be precise. In the remains of an interstellar ship which had crashed here and been converted into a base of operations. She hopped around a bit and managed to find a schematic of the base, vaguely amused that the computer programs seemed to've been last updated around 1985.  _Wonder what they'd make of a Palm,_ she thought, __or one of those little tablet laptops that cost about as much as a new Buick. _

            Another few dancing keystrokes brought up something even more interesting than her current location. She kicked the Page Down button, and then had to back up to the edge of the table to get adequate perspective on the giant screen.

            She was looking at a giant red diesel truck, the sort with the engine directly under the driver's compartment. A split windscreen rose above a massive chrome grille; the trailer it pulled was immense and shaded from charcoal to steel grey. The face she'd seen in her dreams was painted both on the trailer and on the sides of the great red cab. _What the hell do they have pictures of Peterbilt's finest for?_ she wondered. _Actually, looking at it, it's probably a Mack or a Reo._ She nudged the page-down key again, and realization dawned.

            This time the screen showed her a massive giant robot, roughly the size of Megatron, whose torso was bright red and featured not only a giant chrome grill but—and she had to laugh a bit at this—two windowpanes, complete with wiper blades, where his pectoral muscles would have been if he'd been organic. A blue helmet with spikes framed a silver-grey face half-covered with a faceted mask, lending the face as a whole an air of inexpressive power. The blue eye-things alone seemed to hold all the expression he'd ever need. 

            His legs were white and blue, and she figured out after a while that they'd fold up to form the trailer hitch, but there was no sign of the vast steel box of the trailer itself. Presumably he could make it vanish at will. _Good deal, she thought. _Wish I had that kind of storage at will.__

            So, she wondered, sitting down with the champagne bottle in her lap and staring up at the giant robot on the screen, who was he? She hadn't met him yet, and the red face marking him was quite different from the purple face she'd noticed on Megatron, Starscream, Thundercracker, and the other Decepticons she'd met. Presumably it was a mark of allegiance. Based on the colour imagery, she'd assume that Megatron et al were the bad guys, and this angular primary-coloured individual was a Good Guy.

            Alex had never liked Good Guys. They never had any fun, and they certainly never had any good lines; mostly what they did was show up in the nick of time and say heroically predictable things like "You'll never get away with this," and then ruin the evil guys' plan with a few well-placed shots. While they inevitably won, they were dead boring.

            She got up, pacing, tabulating conclusions in her head. One: she was more or less Megatron's captive, despite the fact that she certainly wasn't languishing in durance vile; two, something big had come through the warp hole thingy that had brought her and the rest of the Mary Sues here; three, she hadn't seen or heard any of the Decepticons recently, and four: clearly the Decepticons had some large and capable-looking enemies.

            Alex finished the champagne, dropped her cigarette end into the empty bottle, and began to clamber down the table leg. Luckily, her boots seemed to have effectively gripping soles, and she found it remarkably easy to climb down the polished steel column. _Must be that magical power thing again_, she thought, _the same one that made the bed and the coat appear. Jolly good._

            She didn't know exactly where she was going, but she had a feeling something might guide her. Turning left out of the lab, as she vaguely recalled Megatron doing when he'd been carrying her, she trotted along vast echoing hallways until she came to a large, heavy, firmly shut steel door.

            "Bugger," said Alex, and gave the door a kick. There was a hollow booming noise, but no movement. "Well, there goes that idea."

            She lit another cigarette and sat down crosslegged to have a think. 

TBC

**Fanfiction.net says I have eight reviews for this story, but I can only see two: the one I put up saying I can't see the reviews, and one other. If you feel like reviewing, please either send email to alexandraspar@hotmail.com or AltarisCentral@groups.msn.com. Thanks so much!!**


	3. Enter the Insecticons!

And a little more.

I don't know why the bloody URL for my site never shows up as anything other than a period. Perhaps if I type it with all extra spaces, it might ignore the hyperlink and actually register the characters: http ://groups. msn. com/ AltarisCentral. 

I hate Microsoft Word 2000. Dear God, I hate it. I have to spend half my time undoing all the wretched AutoCorrects that it thinks it needs to insert, despite the fact that I've tried to turn off all autocorrect options; they reset themselves every time I open the program. Bloody thing. Word 98 didn't do half this rubbish, and I loved it.

Disclaimer: TF is Hasbro's. Not mine. Kay?

            Absently rubbing her toes, which had not appreciated her attempt to kick open a steel door roughly six feet thick, Alex huddled in her blue-fox coat and sulked. _Even if I could get through the bloody door, she thought, _there's no guarantee I could ever find my way to the control room. Not that I'd have much to do when I got there, but it's got to be more interesting than sitting around in a giant robot's lab and waiting for something to happen. And I want to know what came through the warp hole this time.__

            She sat back against the door and closed her eyes. Things could be worse: she could be a smoking grease-stain on the floor, for instance, if Starscream had had his way to begin with. However, smoking grease-stains on the floor don't generally have to make up ways to excuse their sudden absence from work during the last days of a grant, or attempt to contact the outside world from inside a giant alien spaceship, or deal with animated Barbies with advanced degrees in astrophysics. Maybe Starscream hadn't done her that much of a favour by letting her live. 

            She was so deep in her self-pitying reverie that she didn't notice the approach of three smallish purple-and-yellow robots until one of them bent over and said, "'Ullo."

            "Yeek!" she said, jerking upright and hitting her head on the steel door with an amusing booming noise. The robots snickered. Rubbing her head, Alex regarded them thoughtfully. "Who're you?"

            "I'm Kickback," said the one who'd addressed her originally. All three of them were black, purple and yellow, with rather elegant silvery metal bits sticking off them at odd angles. The one who'd spoken had cheerful yellow antennae, which were waving themselves absently in the air. "This is Shrapnel, and that's Bombshell." 

            Shrapnel was the one with the things that looked like streetcar-cable contacts on his shoulders, and the lower half of Bombshell's face was covered with a visor reminiscent of Italian High Gothic armour. They were looking at her curiously. 

            "Can we eat it?" Bombshell asked. 

            "It's a human, human," said Shrapnel, fingering his chin. "They give you indigestion, remember?"

            "Nobody is eating me," said Alex firmly. "How come you're not thirty feet tall?"

            "We're the Insecticons," Kickback informed her. "We're supposed to be this size. Not like some of those overgrown scrapheaps who call themselves Decepticons."

            Alex snorted. "Overgrown scrapheaps, huh? I'm Alex. I'm not supposed to be here."

            "What a coincidence, dence," said Shrapnel. The speech impediment was really rather cute, coming from a mechanical being. "Neither are we." He grinned. Kickback's antennae pointed themselves at her. 

            "What're you doing in Decepticon headquarters, then?" he asked.

            "Trying to get this sodding door open. Look, do you know what's going on? Where is everybody?"

            Bombshell shrugged. "The place is deserted. Say, you're not one of those Mary Sues, are you? They don't taste very good at all."

            She blinked. "You eat them?"

            "We eat whatever we can get," Kickback told her, "although I gotta say that the taste's definitely not worth all the squealing and thrashing about."

            "Speak for yourself, self," said Shrapnel. "That one with the purple hair was kind of good, good."

            Alex was fascinated, despite herself. "Hold it, you're robots, yeah? How come you eat stuff?"

            "We're special."

            "Ah," she said, clearly not going to get an explanation. "Well, do you know how to open this door?"

            "Not a problem," said Bombshell, and leapt into the air. Alex watched in amazement as the robot defied gravity, soaring up to the red panel on the wall by the doorframe, and gave it a healthy kick. There was a hiss of compressed air, and the door slid open.

            "Damn," she said. "How about I just hang out with you guys from now on? With the flying, and the eating obnoxious things, and the hey hey."

            "Fine by me," said Shrapnel, "as long as you don't try and get us to fall in love with you, you."

            "Don't take this wrong, but you're not my type," she told him. His colleagues tried not to laugh.

            After some argument, the Insecticons agreed to let her ride on them, or at least hang on for dear life while they zoomed through the hallways, because her pathetic human legs didn't walk very fast. She clung to Shrapnel's back as he shot through the doorway to the command room, did an elegant barrel roll, and landed on the console facing the giant screen. She staggered a few steps away from him and sat down heavily until the world stopped spinning quite so fast. 

            The Insecticons were busy doing awful things to the console; she caught a glimpse of what looked like a Photoshopped version of Starscream wearing a pink tutu before her higher brain centers kicked in and made her look away. She tapped out a few basic commands on the console next to them and managed, by sheer luck, to call up a schematic of the base. "Hey, guys," she called. "Any idea how to locate your large friends?"

            Kickback stopped whatever he was doing and came over to join her. "Who cares?"

            "Me, for one," she told him, lighting a Camel. "I want to see if there's any way they can send me back to where I'm supposed to be, which is about four thousand miles and several vertical fathoms away." Smoke trickled from her nostrils. "And I also sort of want to know what came through the warp gate this time. I got signatures implying something noticeable has arrived."

            "Is it edible?"

            "I don't know," she retorted, "what do you lot normally eat?"

            "Whatever's available, vailable," Shrapnel grinned. "Except Nova power cores and Mary Sues with green hair."

            "And brussels sprouts," added Bombshell, logging on to AOL.

            "Well, that narrows it down," she sighed, sitting down on the edge of the console with her chin resting on her knees. "I wish I knew what was causing all this."

            Behind her, Kickback was typing, rapidly. "Hey, human-thing," he said. "Check this out. Looks like all the big bots are in the storage room."

            Alex turned, glancing over her shoulder. "It's _Alex_, insect-thing," she said mildly. "Wait a sec, isn't that the storage room where all the Mary Sues come out?"

            Shrapnel and Bombshell were ignoring her. "Who cares? While the big bots are busy, we can have some fun. Hey, guys, let's go replace Megatron's DVD collection with the first volume of _Hot Anime Heroines in the Shower._" 

            Kickback joined his comrades. "Didn't we do that last week?"

            "No, that was the collector's edition of _Emeril Live_. And the week before was _Carpentry for Novices_ volumes six through eighteen. Remember? That was the time he chased us all around the base with his fusion cannon, yelling that he was going to tie us into knots and feed us to the anglerfish that keeps trying to get in through the main cargo bay." Bombshell folded his arms. "Maybe we oughtta branch out, you know? Start messing with his collection of Dungeons and Dragons figurines, or something."

            "Ooh, we could repaint them to look like _H.R. Pufnstuf_ characters."

            "You guys don't have enough to do," said Alex, blowing smoke rings. "Okay. If I help you do something even more annoying than messing with Megatron's toys, will _you help __me find out what the smeg is going on in that storage room?"_

            The Insecticons exchanged considering looks. "Does it involve chocolate syrup, high-octane gasoline, and giant inflatable models of the _Titanic?"_

            "It might."

            "We're in, in," said Shrapnel. "Climb aboard."

            **

_Half an hour earlier..._

            Superia Prime straightened up. Her internal time monitors told her that she'd been offline for four hundred fifty-three point seven astro-seconds, and she registered strange ion signatures all around her which corresponded to the twisted energies of a warp-gate. The last clear thing in her digital memory was the battle of Epsilon Trismegistus; she'd been just about to destroy her mortal enemy DoomStar with a mighty blow from her Fire Glaive when she had been summoned to a different plane. _Again, justice is thwarted by the winds of chance_, she thought.

            She looked around herself. She stood in a room designed for beings roughly her size, utterly devoid of decoration save for an intercom panel by the door. Her body seemed to be intact—her internal damage reports didn't register anything beyond a brief energy surge as she had come through the warp gate—and her Fire Glaive was still burning brightly in her hand. She sheathed it with a decisive motion, and walked over to the door.

            Superia Prime could see her reflection in the steel. Being an admirer of Beauty in whatever form she found it, although utterly without vanity, she had a good long look at herself. Her body was all sharp angles and tight curves, her red-and-gold armour glinting brilliantly even in the dim light. More organic than several of her comrades, Superia Prime's body resembled nothing so much as a vast, perfect metal sculpture. Her pale-gold face was framed by a delicate red helmet decorated with gold curves designed to look like wings; two of these swept down to accentuate her high cheekbones. A breastplate that would have put human Valkyries to shame bore the insignia of her people, the SuperCons, etched in brilliant gold. Her golden fingers were tipped with sharp steel claws which could retract into sheaths at will; the claws themselves were dark rust-red, like the sculptured curves of her lower legs, which ended in high-heeled, pointed feet; her thighs and hips were burnished gold, and a belt of interlinked dark-red plaques draped around her waist. Her golden optics were narrowed.

            Without being aware of it, Superia Prime was broadcasting a signal on a number of frequencies which cut directly through the shielding of the base like a knife through water. One by one, the Decepticon warriors dropped what they were doing, turning blindly to follow the signal, and approached the storage room. What they found there did not disappoint them.

            "Oh, good grief," said Alex, clinging to Shrapnel's shoulders as he landed in the doorway of the storage room. Kickback and Bombshell joined them after a moment, exchanging looks of horrified amusement. "They're all...zombies, or something."

            The storage room was packed with Decepticons. She recognized the dark-blue tape player guy who'd brought her the food, standing beside Megatron (who was swaying a bit, she noticed). Starscream, Thundercracker, and another jet-thingy who looked just like them but was a tasteful combination of purple and black were jostling for position with each other; a big grey robot she didn't know was trying to elbow his way past someone whose design unfortunately featured a large nosecone on top of his head. She stared.

            "What the slag is wrong with them, with them?" Shrapnel muttered. Beside him, Kickback leaped into the air and hovered unobtrusively over Megatron's shoulder. He didn't stay long before coming back down to join them. 

            "It's a femmebot," he said, shakily. Alex got off Shrapnel's back, cursing, and threaded her way through the forest of enormous metal legs. She had to bang on several of them to get them to move, but eventually she arrived at the centre of the circle of Decepticons, and had to pause to catch her breath. Kickback was right. It was one _hell_ of a femmebot.

            The glamorie lasted for about a minute before the intrinsic Alex kicked back in. _What the hell does a robot want with breasts? she wondered sourly. _And it's wearing heels. Why is it wearing heels? And what the hell is with the lipstick?__

            She noticed the large sword strapped to its back, and sighed. _Oh boy. This one isn't going to go down with a lucky hit by a folding chair. I don't know what its vulnerable points are, and it can step on me anytime it wants. _

The Decepticons around her were beginning to shove one another aside in order to get closer to the newcomer, and Alex found herself having to move quickly so as not to get stomped. Above her head, the femmebot spoke.

            "Please," it said, in a clear, sweet, bell-like voice that didn't have anything to do with machinery. "Do not fight on my account, friends. I would not disturb your fellowship."

            _Fellowship? Alex wondered. __Christ. Now it's going to say "don't you all get in a tizzy over li'l old me."_

            "Out of the way, Starscream," snarled Megatron, elbowing him. "Don't be discourteous to our guest."

            "Aah,  you always have to have everything your own way," Starscream retorted, giving his leader a shove. "Do you _have to make a fool of yourself in front of Superia Prime?"_

            _Oh, hell, and I thought Lady Darktalon was a bad name. Alex ducked as large Decepticon feet stomped down all around her. By now all of them were arguing amongst themselves, and the femmebot was...for lack of a better word...simpering. "Please, you must stop," it said. "You will hurt each other."_

            This was apparently not something the Decepticons had a problem with. The shoving had escalated into a full-scale fistfight, metal clanging off metal, yells of anger and pain echoing horribly in the enclosed space. Alex cursed loudly and inventively and leapt free of the melee, landing on the femmebot's ankle and clambering up its leg to relative safety. 

            Superia Prime bent down, bringing its lovely face rather closer to Alex than she would have liked, and plucked her off its knee. "What manner of thing are you?" it wanted to know, holding her between thumb and forefinger like a mildly interesting worm.

            "I'm Alex," said Alex, trying not to squirm under the force of those great golden eyes. "Look, um, your presence here isn't doing them any good."

            Superia Prime's eyes narrowed. "But they need my help. Clearly their technology is inefficient and obsolete, and they are emotionally unstable. They need me."

            "No," said Alex despairingly, "they don't. Look. Before you got here they were more or less functional, and now they're ripping bits off one another." She pointed as Megatron pulled off one of Starscream's wings and then had to duck for cover as the enraged jet leapt for him. 

            "Emotionally unstable," repeated the femmebot. "I can help them."

            "Yeah, by going away."

            A change came over the femmebot's perfect face; a smile curved its lips, its golden eyes warmed and became condescending rather than belligerent. "Ah," it said. "I understand you now, little organic thing. You are female, are you not?"

            "That's got nothing to do with this," said Alex.

            "Of course it does. You suffer from jealousy, a common affliction of the lesser mind." It raised her level with its eyes. "I pity you. However, your presence here is distracting and will interfere with my intentions to help these poor males."

            "Interesting," said Alex, thoughtfully, clinging to its fingers.

            "What is?"

            "You. I never thought that mechanical beings could be complete twats, but you seem to have proved otherwise. I salute you."

            "What?" it asked, but Alex had already wriggled out of her foxfur coat and leapt free of its hand, having seen Kickback out of the corner of her eye. For an awful moment she thought the Insecticon hadn't seen her, but as she reached the apex of her arc and began to fall, a metal hand seized hers, and she landed against his chest with enough force to drive the breath from her body. The femmebot made a grab for them, but missed as he zigged nimbly out of the way, soaring over the heads of the enraged Decepticons to join his colleagues, hovering in the doorway. "Let's go!" he yelled. 

            "Where to?"

            "Anywhere that isn't here!"

TBC

again, please email reviews, as ff.net appears to hate me. alexandraspar@hotmail.com.


	4. Starscream Sort of Takes Command

I realize that my version of the Insecticons may lack something when it comes to veracity, in terms of what they might be doing in the Decepticon headquarters, but hey. This is my crappy fanfic, and I can do as I please. MwahahahahahahaHAHA!!

Yes. Anyway, nothing except for Alex belongs to me. Except the Sappivator, which I believe must already exist, given the number of appalling Mary Sues running rampant in all the fandoms I'm interested in. By the way, it does NOT look like a planetarium projector. 

            "In here," yelled Alex. "Looks like a nice boring room not containing any lasers or giant irritable robots whom I've just insulted!"

            Kickback banked left and ducked under the lintel into the room she'd indicated. As a matter of fact, no one was currently shooting at them, which was something of a relief. The other Insecticons followed, and came in to land on a recharge couch inside the open door. 

            "Where are we?" she wanted to know, disentangling herself from Kickback. He and his fellow Insecticons looked around, and then started to giggle helplessly.     

            "It's Megatron's quarters," said Bombshell, hopping off the bed and making his way to a large metal desk featuring a computer terminal. "Let's see what he's got for his wallpaper _this_ week."

            Alex sat down with her head in her hands. "I'm gonna die, aren't I?" she asked the world in general. "I'm gonna die in a particularly unpleasant and painful sort of way."

            "Hey, don't sound so sure, sure," said Shrapnel, calling up a schematic of the base. "Looks like no one's guarding the main entrance. We can get out!"

            "Out where? Into the middle of the freaking ocean?"

            "Yep," said Kickback. "I'm sure Meggy won't care, he's much too involved with that femmebot to pay any attention to us. Or you."

            "You can't take me home, can you?" she wanted to know.

            "Depends. What's in it for us?"

            "Er," she said, thinking. "How about a gigantic, delicious data server housed in a mostly unguarded basement?"  
            "What about the chocolate syrup and models of the _Titanic_?"

            "I'll get them for you. Just get me the smeg out of here!"

            "Fair enough, enough," said Shrapnel. "Hang on a moment, we're still downloading Megatron's temp databases."

            "Why?"

            "Because, if he ever catches us, we will have an _excellent _bargaining position." Bombshell tapped a key, and the computer screen showed them the root menu of Megatron's personal files. "Check it out," he said. "He's been downloading Celine Dion again."

            Alex stared, and then curled up in a fetal position. "I'd rather not hear about it, if you don't mind," she said. "My heart ain't gonna go on."

            **

            "I........need energy..." Megatron groaned, staggering. Superia Prime was there, suddenly, supporting his weight easily with her slender and astonishing strength. "Something...is draining me..."

            "Don't try to talk," said the femmebot gently, slipping her arm around his shoulders. "I'm sure I can help you."

            All around them, the rest of the Decepticons were exchanging glances of mutual dislike before clutching at their chests and staggering. Moaning filled the room. Superia Prime cast a considering glance around them. "I will return to help you," she said firmly. "Right now, Megatron needs my aid."

            Starscream, missing a wing and one aileron, clutched weakly at the air. "Help...me..." he gasped. Superia Prime paused a moment beside him. 

            "Relax," she said gently. "I will return for you."

            Starscream subsided, clutching the raw edge where his wing had been. Superia Prime gave him a small comforting smile and assisted Megatron from the room. The Decepticon leader leaned heavily on her, coughing every now and then in a deep painful rasp. 

            "I.." he managed. She shifted his weight a little and let his head rest on her shoulder as she half-carried him down the corridor.

            "You have been badly wounded," she told him. "Your fight with the other Decepticons has damaged you."

            This was not, in fact, the case. Megatron's fusion cannon had been loosened a little by a lucky shot from Starscream, and two or three of the circuit panels on his chest had been ripped open, but there was nothing really badly wrong with him. Nevertheless, he leaned on Superia Prime and let her help him along the corridor. "I can't...breathe..." he gasped, hands pressing his chest, part of his mind calculating probability functions for several different outcomes. He didn't _need_ to breathe, of course. His oxygen intakes were mostly used for cooling. He wasn't about to tell her that, though.

            "You must relax," she told him, cradling him against her. He groaned and began to cough, making it sound as bad as possible despite his perfectly functioning voice modulator, trying to remember how he'd sounded when he'd been suffering from Cosmic Rust. Superia Prime cursed and opened his chest panel, deft fingers tracing his oxygen circuits and fuel lines. Megatron looked up at her with flickering red optics, calculating what sort of effect this was having on her, and moaned. 

            "Leave me," he managed. "Don't...waste your skills..."

            It worked perfectly. Superia Prime's mouth thinned to a knife-slit, and she lifted him in her arms as if he'd weighed nothing at all, bearing him away down the corridor to his quarters. He lay back, enjoying himself, wondering vaguely how long it would take Starscream to bleed to death from his torn wing and ailerons. Perhaps he could be disposed of with a few well-aimed fusion blasts. Things were looking up, despite the fact that his mind seemed to be wrapped in a happy pink fog. He found he rather liked it.

            Back in the storage room, Starscream sat up and cursed vitriolically, trying to cauterize the flow of mechfluid from his wing-stump. "This is ridiculous," he spat. 

            Beside him, Skywarp and Thundercracker extracted themselves from under the limp form of Astrotrain. Both Seekers looked considerably the worse for wear, but neither of them were missing key elements of their design. "Damn," said Skywarp. "He got you good, Starscream. Where'd he go, anyway?"

            "That femmebot was half-carrying him out of here," snarled Starscream. Now that Superia Prime was out of the room, the signals she'd been sending were dampened enough so that the Decepticons had some of their functions—and most of their minds—back. "He was jolly milking it, too. 'Oh, oh, oh, help me, I'm so pathetic, oh, oh.'"

            "Sounds kinda familiar, Screamer," said Skywarp. "'Member last time, when you were confined to med bay for most of a week complaining of a cold?"

            "Shut up! I was under a malevolent influence!"

            "Uh huh," said Thundercracker. "Looks like the boss's under one too."

            "Big deal." Starscream shook mech-fluid off his fingers. "Either of you any good at repairs?"

            The Seekers exchanged a look. Skywarp took the wing stump between his fingers, ignoring Starscream's hiss of pain, and ran the tip of a high-temp soldering probe along it. Starscream, predictably, screamed.

            "Oh, be quiet," said Thundercracker, inspecting his wingmate's work. "It's not oozing any more." 

            Skywarp's probe retracted and was replaced by his left hand. "Come on," he said, getting to his feet, "we have to find out where that thing went, and blast it to smithereens."

            Starscream cracked his knuckles. "Screw the femmebot, I want to blast _Megatron. Nobody does this to the Aerospace Commander! Look at me, I'm _mutilated_!"_

            Thundercracker sighed and gathered up the wandering edges of his patience. "Wherever the femmebot went, she's got Megatron. Find one of them, and we'll have found the other one. Come on."

            Starscream blinked, but shut up and followed his wingmates out of the storage room, stepping over the heaps of unconscious Decepticons. Part of his mind was turning over the possibilities for seizing control now that Megatron had apparently lost his mind, his self-respect and his dignity all in one go; most of it was taken up with the urgent need to destroy things. They hurried down the corridor the way Superia Prime and Megatron had gone. He noticed that Skywarp was absently fingering his throat, as if it were sore. 

            "Is it just me," said the black-and-purple Seeker, his voice rasping a little, "or are we gonna go all stupid again once we get close to her?"

            "We'll deal with that when we get there," Thundercracker said, not looking round. Starscream glanced from him to Skywarp, then back to the corridor ahead. Strangely, the pain from his injured wing seemed to have cleared his head of the pink fog that had accompanied the presence of Superia Prime. He found himself wondering what would happen if he took the cageful of humanoid Mary Sues and locked them in a room with the femmebot. It might be worth a try.

            "Okay, that's the last of it," said Bombshell, shutting down Megatron's computer and transforming. Alex had seen their insect-modes only recently, and had been concentrating firmly on not giggling: they looked so damned _cute with their robotic mandibles gnawing on something. Especially Bombshell. She looked away hurriedly. _

            "Can we leave now?"

            "I don't see why not," said Kickback, landing on the recharge bed beside her and gallantly offering a hand up. As she took it, the sound of metallic feet on metal floor-tiles echoed down the corridor.

            "Oh, shit, someone's coming," said Alex, climbing onto the grasshopper's back. "Let's wiggle, guys."

            "Too late, late," hissed Shrapnel, leaping off the desk. "It's Megatron! Hide!"

            They dove under the desk and found an extremely convenient air vent, which Shrapnel opened with a few well-placed bites, and squeezed inside, pulling the grating closed behind them. Alex peered through the grating and saw Superia Prime ease the vast silver form of the Decepticon leader down to the bed. Megatron's optics were dim and flickering, as if he was almost out of power. The femmebot sat down on the edge of his bed and took his hand in its golden one. 

            "Ugh," whispered Kickback, inching up beside Alex to have a look. "How sweet. What d'you suppose is wrong with him?"

            "Nothing," she whispered back. "It's weird, but they all seem to induce extreme hypochondria and manipulative weakness in the males they affect. I think he's knocked one of the connections for his cannon loose, and he might need a bit of a polish, but that's about it."

            "Why's he coughing like that then?" Kickback wanted to know.

            "I think it's the femmebot's effect on him. Apparently coughing is a sign of extreme weakness and need for help. Despite the fact that he hasn't got any sodding _lungs." She scowled. "This is all so illogical it hurts."_

            "Wait," said Bombshell, poking her. "You're a squi...a human. You're illogical."

            "I am not illogical. _That_ is illogical." She rested her chin on her hands and regarded Megatron doing a rather decent impression of the English Patient. "You know what? Screw escaping, I want to get rid of that femmebot. I don't care what happens to my experiments any more, I just want to see that thing destroyed."

            The Insecticons exchanged a glance. "Are you _sure_ you're not being illogical?"

            "Shut up and help me think of a plan."

            **

            "Hey! Hey, guys! Over here!"

            The Seekers looked at one another, then up at the ceiling. An access hatch to the service crawlspace had been nudged aside, and they could make out Rumble and Frenzy peering down at them out of the darkness. "What the smeg are you doing up there?" demanded Starscream.

            "Huh, do _you wanna hang around Soundwave when he's all mushy and sentimental and trying to be suave?" Rumble spat. "Makes me sick, the very idea. How come you look like you went sixteen rounds with Megatron, Screamer?"_

            "Because I did," Starscream informed him icily. "You haven't seen him pass this way, have you?"

            "Nope." Rumble jumped down into the corridor, followed by Frenzy, Ravage and Laserbeak. "What's the plan?"

            "Plan?" echoed Skywarp, looking down his nose at the cassettes. 

            "Yeah, plan," said Frenzy. "Like, how are we gonna get rid of all those Mary Sues, especially that big red and gold one that makes everyone go totally wingnuts?"

            "We haven't got a plan," said Thundercracker, folding his arms. 

            "Yes we do," Starscream told him. "Ready? First, we find the femmebot and we disintegrate it with extreme prejudice. Then, I do something horrible to Megatron. And then we get someone to fix my slagging wing, which _hurts, I might remind you," he added to Skywarp, who shrugged. _

            Rumble and Frenzy looked at one another, and then down at Ravage and Laserbeak. "Sounds okay to us," Rumble said. "I say we hit the armoury first. There's a blaster rifle in there I got my eye on."

            Skywarp nodded. "Let's go."

            Starscream added, under his breath, "And then I take over control of the Decepticons and lead us to victory."

            "What was that?"

            "Nothing. Nothing at all."

**

            "Where the hell are we?" Alex wanted to know. They'd been crawling through the ventilation ducts for what seemed like hours. "Are you _sure_ you know the way to the Mary Sue room?"

            "Of course I do, do," said Shrapnel irritably. "I'm a precision machine. I don't make mistakes, takes."

            "Says you," muttered Kickback, snickering. Alex sighed. 

            "How much farther is it then?"

            "Just around the next corner."

            "You said that half an hour ago."

            "Aah, be quiet and walk, squishy."

            "Squishy yourself, bugbrain."

            "Ooh, is it insult-trading time? I got a bunch stored up," said Bombshell, his voice holding a grin. Alex snorted and lit a cigarette as they turned the next corner, and unfortunately it seemed that she would have to wait to hear Insecticon insults; the passage dead-ended in a ventilation grid through which they could dimly make out the cage containing twenty-odd voluptuous fictitional characters. 

            "Great," said Alex. "Look, uh, guys, you might wanna let me handle this."

            "They don't affect us, us," Shrapnel assured her. "We're far too clever for that."

            She sighed. "Fine, but don't blame me if you come over all infatuated, kay?"

            Kickback removed the grating for them with a well-aimed kick, and they hurried over to the cage. "Greetings," said Alex, trying to work out the best way to handle this. The Mary Sues flocked over to the side of the cage closest to them, talking excitedly amongst themselves. 

            "Sister Alex! You return!" said the one she vaguely remembered as being Princess Somebody. "Have you come to free us from this bondage?"

            "Er, yes," she said. The Insecticons joined her at the cage, whereupon the cluster of Mary Sues backed off as far as they could.

            "Monsters!" they squeaked. "They _ate_ Lady Lutharianielia of Elvenhome!"

            "Oh, was that the one with green hair?" asked Kickback, interestedly. "A bit stringy, I recall."

            "And the Brightstar Sorceress Darleena!"

            "Purple hair," said Shrapnel. "Dee-licious, licious."

            Alex cleared her throat. "Never mind that now, they're on our side," she assured the Mary Sues. "Nobody is going to get eaten." She ignored the disappointed looks the Insecticons shot her. "We need your help. Mary Sues, meet the Insecticons, Shrapnel, Kickback and Bombshell. Insecticons, I believe you're already acquainted with the Mary Sues."

            "Mary Sues?" repeated Princess Somebody. 

            "A, er, codename for you accomplished independent female types," Alex explained. "Now, if I recall, you all really rather liked the Decepticons, didn't you?"

            Moans of helpless desire arose from the throng.

            "Good. Now," she continued, taking hold of the bars, "they are in _danger."_

            There was a clatter as twenty-odd pairs of spike heels were stamped down in poses of determined readiness. Alex suppressed a giggle. "We must go to their aid," snapped Princess Somebody, bosoms heaving with...well...just heaving, actually. Alex nodded.

            "A dangerous foe has entered the base," she went on. "A female robot. It wants to destroy the Decepticons." She paused, looking among the Mary Sues for a particular head of platinum-blonde waves. "Lady Darktalon," she called out. "I saw it attack you while you were attempting to help Starscream."

            Lady Darktalon came to the bars and looked down at her. She was walking a trifle unsteadily on her stilettos, and from the unfocused look in her eyes Alex judged she'd sustained quite a healthy concussion from the folding chair. She squashed a grin of satisfaction and manufactured, instead, an expression of concerned sorority. "It was too fast for me," she said. "I tried to save you, but I was too late."

            "I...don't remember..." muttered the Mary Sue. "It all happened so quickly..."

            "Yes," agreed Alex. "The being that attacked you is the one which is attempting to destroy the Decepticons. We must band together to stop its evil rise to power."

            Bombshell tapped her on the shoulder. "What exactly is your plan?" he asked.

            "You'll see," said Alex. "Now, my sisters—"

            Behind her the door of the storage room whooshed open, and Starscream, Thundercracker and the other one whose name she didn't know, along with a pair of much smaller robots and what looked like a metal cat and hawk, walked in.

            "Shit," said Alex.

            "You," said Starscream, staring at her. She suddenly wished she still had the blue-fox coat, because the stare seemed to be dropping the temperature in the room. Luckily, her magical powers hadn't faded, and an identical coat materialized around her. She tried to look as if she had been expecting this.

            "You look awful," she told him.

            "How I look is none of your business, squishy," he snapped. "What are you doing?"

            "Trying to get rid of Superia Prime." Alex put her hands on her hips and glared up at him. "What about you?"

            "Same here," said the unnamed giant robot, whose voice Alex found she rather preferred to Thundercracker's baritone or Starscream's rasping tenor. "Who're you?"

            "Alex. Long story." She turned back to the cageful of Mary Sues. "Listen, sisters," she said, trying to ignore the Insecticons snickering to themselves, "I've got to speak privately with the Decepticons."

            Princess Somebody nodded tersely. "Hurry," she said. "We have to do something."

            "I'm aware of that. Come on, guys. Quit staring at them." Alex poked Bombshell, who was looking consideringly at a pink-haired beauty in a garment which, if not inhabited by the pink-haired beauty, would have contracted to the size of a gum wrapper. Reluctantly the Insecticons followed her over to the doorway. She looked up at Starscream and company, and sighed. "Can you kneel down or something? I feel stupid yelling up at you."

            With an exasperated sigh Starscream knelt beside her. The two other jets followed suit, and the two smaller robots—one in tasteful shades of purple and blue, the other red and navy—came closer to hear what she had to say. "First, who're you lot? Starscream and Thundercracker I've met."

            "I'm Skywarp," said the unnamed jet. 

            "Rumble," said Mr. Blue-Violet.

            "Frenzy," added his companion. "That's Ravage and Laserbeak. Who the slag are you and what are you doing in our base?"

            "I think I'm supposed to be one of them," said Alex, gesturing over her shoulder at the cageful of Mary Sues, who had lost interest and were comparing manicures. "Only I don't have the same effect they do. And I don't particularly want to be in your base, but since I'm here, I might as well help you lot get rid of your infestation. Now. I can more or less control the human Mary Sues because they seem to think I'm one of them, and I know how their minds work."

            "They have minds?" Rumble sneered.

            "Figure of speech." Alex rubbed at her temples and lit another cigarette. "I think it's possible that, if we put the humanoid Mary Sues and the big nasty metal one together, they might manage to destroy one another."

            Starscream rubbed the stump of his wing absently. "How're you going to do that?" he wanted to know.

            "Ah," said Alex, "that's where you guys come in." She looked around the circle of robots. "First, we have to _find_ the big nasty metal one."

            "That's easy," said Bombshell, behind her. "She's probably still playing ministering-angel to Megatron, unless she's got bored with him already."

            Alex nodded. She supposed Superia Prime might still be messing about with the Decepticon leader. She noticed a shudder run through all the robots. Starscream's optics brightened a little. 

            "Really," he said. "Poor, poor Megatron."

            Rumble looked up at him. "Huh?"

            "Oh, I'm just concerned about our great leader," said Starscream airily. "He must have come off worse in the fight with me than I thought. Perhaps I should lead the Decepticons in his absence."

            Skywarp and Thundercracker exchanged a long-suffering glance. "Screamer," said Thundercracker, "this is not the time to plot Megatron's downfall."

            "Are you insane? This is the _perfect_ time! He's totally defenseless and at the mercy of the Mary Sue from hell!"

            Alex sighed, suddenly feeling ancient and very tired indeed, and sat down on the floor. "Okay, I'm done," she said. "You guys go on and kill Superia Prime and do your little political coup thing. I'll just sit here and smoke the rest of my cigarettes and wait for the explosions, okay?"

            "Fine by me," said Starscream, getting up. "All right, Rumble, Ravage and Frenzy, you go inform the rest of the Decepticons that I'm your new leader. TC, Skywarp, help me carry the cage. Laserbeak, fly reconnaissance."

            "What about us?" Kickback asked, curiously. He and the other Insecticons were watching the larger robots with a mixture of amusement and trepidation.

            "Who cares about you?" Starscream grinned. "Go back to Bali and eat a few trees."

            Alex lay back on the floor and regarded the ceiling. The world had gone completely to hell, and she found, surprisingly, that she had totally ceased to care.

TBC

Oh, and there's a picture of Alex sitting on Megatron's hand while he glares at her up on Altaris Central. 


	5. Look! It's behind you!

(A/N: Warning warning warning: this chapter contains gratuitous jumping about in time, as well as entirely too many "Look! There's something behind you!" scenes. Thanks to Lynx Traveller (and all the other kind people who've reviewed). I took your wing suggestion to heart. Neither Transformers nor Nyarlathotep are mine. I'd really rather like to own the former, but the latter can keep his unimaginable horrors to himself.)

_The Heroic Autobots'Ark™..._

            Ratchet finished replacing Tracks's left CV joint, and closed the access panel, stepping back and rubbing at his optics. "I've told you before, quit it with the street racing," he told the dark-blue Autobot. "Or at least quit racing on streets that have potholes dating back to the Ford administration. You're not designed for it."

            Tracks shifted and got off the table, sulkily. "I can do whatever I want," he drawled. 

            "You know what, you're right. Next time, you can do your _own front-end job." Ratchet folded his arms. "Go on, get out of here. I've got work to do."_

            Tracks looked around the deserted med bay.  "You do?"

            "Yes, I do." Ratchet wasn't about to tell him that the work in question consisted of doing an in-depth anatomical examination of the special issue of _FemBot featuring Lolita-One, Cybertron's ultimate pleasure drone. Tracks gave him a sulky look and slouched off, unconsciously imitating James Dean, and Ratchet went back to his duty desk and pulled out his magazines. _

            He hadn't even managed to get to the centerfold when Wheeljack burst in, ears flashing red with suppressed glee. "Ratchet! Man, you have _got to check out what's goin' on at the Deceptibase! It's great!"_

            Ratchet hurriedly tucked _FemBot_ back into his desk drawer. "Do you mind? I was doing work here."

            "You're not gonna _believe_ what's happening," Wheeljack insisted, grabbing his arm and yanking him to his feet, down the hall, and into the command room. The rest of the Autobots were gathered there, watching events on the great main screen of Teletran One. Even Prime was trying not to look as if he was enjoying what he saw.

            "We've been recording it!" Wheeljack hissed, elbowing his way through the throng and calling up another image on one of the side screens. Ratchet saw what looked like a rather accurate clone of Lolita-One in red and gold bending over Megatron, who was slumped on a recharge couch with a look of pathetic helplessness on his face, which wasn't designed for it. Ratchet couldn't help snorting. 

            "See, she's got him...and before that...." Wheeljack rewound the recording to show a fisheye lens view of a roomful of Decepticons beating each other over the head with whatever came to hand. Ratchet's optics widened as he noticed Megatron yank Starscream's left wing off and start whapping him over the head with it, while the jet apparently tried to take a bite out of his leader's arm. Beside them, Dirge was happily jumping up and down on Thrust. Wheeljack was laughing so hard his ears had gone purple.

            "Hey," said Ratchet, trying to ignore Astrotrain knocking over Soundwave by throwing Ramjet at him, "who's that? Pause the tape a sec."

            Wheeljack managed to control himself long enough to pause the recording, and they could all clearly make out the form of what looked like a female human in the golden femmebot's hand.  "What the hey?"

            "It's one of the Mary Sues. It has to be. Why else would there be female humans in the Decepticon base?"

            "Hang on," said Prime, unpausing the tape. He scowled at the tiny figure of the human, who gave the femmebot an unmistakeable V-sign and then squiggled out of its hand in apparent suicide. There was a flash of purple and black, and something caught her as she fell, and zoomed out of frame. "That was odd."

            "Did you _see the look on the femmebot's face just then?" Wheeljack gasped, wheezing with hilarity. Prime was ignoring him. _

            "Cosmos," he said, flicking open the comm channel, "see if you can get any scans of human life inside the Decepticon base."

            There was a pause, filled with further amusement at the Decepticons onscreen, who had now progressed to the mosh-pit stage of public brawling. Finally Cosmos came back to them. "Prime, I'm reading one human lifeform, the usual complement of Cybertronians, and a whole collection of bizarre warp signatures."

            "Hah," said Optimus Prime. "So I was right. That," he pointed at the freeze-frame of the humanoid jumping out of the femmebot's fist, "is not a Mary Sue. That is a real, live, actual, non-imaginatory human being."

            "What?" Wheeljack said. "It can't be."  
            "Didn't you say that it was theoretically possible for your Sappivator to home in on actual living beings and transpose them into the target zone instead of Mary Sues?"

            Wheeljack gave Ratchet a dirty look. "Well, theoretically, it's possible, but..."

            "And you also said," Prime reminded him, "that there had been an unexplained event where your invention had flickered in and out of reality."

            "Yeah, well, that might have just been a visual glitch, y'know..."

            "Wheeljack," said Prime firmly, "you put a human in the Decepticon base."

            Most of the laughter had stopped by now, although Bumblebee was still giggling like an idiot over the spectacle of the Aerospace Commander being beaten over the head with his own severed wing. 

            "And we all know how the Decepticons feel about humans," murmured Hound, from behind them.

            Wheeljack's ears flashed red. "Okay, okay, okay," he said, but added "Looks to me like she's got it under control." He raised a hand to forestall protests. "I'll find some way to get her back out."

            "Why don't we just go attack the base now?" asked Bluestreak. "I mean, they're not exactly in the best of shape right now."

            "I can't risk that." Prime folded his arms. "We have no guarantee that this new Mary Sue won't affect us as well as the Decepticons. I can't have my warriors falling under her spell." He flicked back to the main screen, which was showing the empty command room of the Decepticon base. "Find her, Wheeljack, and get her out of there. I'm sure you can figure something out."

            Wheeljack nodded and hurried off. There was silence for a moment before Bumblebee rewound the tape to the bit where they started attacking one another and began to replay it. One by one, they started to laugh again.

            _Meanwhile, at the Undersea DeceptiBase Home of Evil ™..._

            Alex, true to her word, was busily working her way through the Camels. She'd wished up a sofa and a bottle of wine, as well as the collected works of Jhonen Vasquez, and was reclining at her ease in the deserted storage room. She'd watched the Insecticons take wing, presumably for Bali and freedom (why Bali, she wondered vaguely; why not, say, Madagascar, or the Bikini Atoll? Presumably there was a reason) and forced herself not to laugh as Starscream, TC and Skywarp carried the cageful of Mary Sues out, trying all the while not to look at them or pay attention to the waves of pink mindless fluffiness coming off them like cheap perfume. In the meanwhile, she fully expected there to be a minor civil war in the offing, and she had absolutely no intention of being involved at all in any way, so she was keeping herself to herself.

            She turned a page. Distantly she could hear voices raised in what might have been anger or incredulity, and then the distinctive _f'tow f'tow f'tow _of laser fire. She wondered how Megatron was faring with the femmebot.

            _We're not thinking about Megatron, remember? And we're also not thinking about Starscream or Skywarp or Thundercracker, or Kickback, or anyone else except ourselves and Mr. The Homicidal Maniac here. _

_            Ah yes, I was forgetting.         _

_            Nor are we thinking about how much trouble we're going to be in at work, if we ever make it out of here alive. Which is a moot point, given that we've failed to hitch a ride with the Insecticons, who seemed to be the only sane individuals in the area._

_            Why the hell are we talking about ourselves in plural third person? _

_            We don't know._

"Oh, bugger," said Alex and got up, flicking away the cigarette end and giving up trying not to be interested in what was happening around her. JTHM and the sofa disappeared with a faint pop as she stopped thinking about them; the bottle of wine didn't follow suit. She tucked it under her arm and headed out of the room. "If there's gonna be any explosions, I want a front-row seat."

            _And we want to see if Megatron's kicked Starscream's head off yet._

_            Shut up, interior voice._

_            Shutting up right now._

***

            _A few moments before..._

            Megatron's memory was a little hazy on recent events; he could be sure that he had kicked some serious afterburner in the impromptu fight in the storage room, and then things had gone a little pink and uncertain. He seemed to remember being ill, or at least feeling dreadfully weak, and then something had been there and made it all go away. Something that....felt _wonderful_.

            He shuddered.

            Replacing the fusion cannon on his forearm and feeling the locking bolts slide into place, he sat up. He wasn't at all clear how he'd got to his quarters, or why he'd been lying on the bed with one arm dangling helplessly toward the floor, but somebody was certainly going to suffer for all this. Whatever had suddenly come over him had gone away again; he, Megatron, was back in action.

            His constant nasty half-smile slipped back onto his face, and he started down the  corridor, fusion cannon at the ready. 

            _Now... _

            Starscream peered round a corner. "It's getting worse," he said. "Superia Prime must be this way."

            Thundercracker and Skywarp groaned. "You could help carry the cage," said Skywarp, who was beginning to suffer from the proximity of the Mary Sues. They had done a bit of yelling and jumping up and down when the Seekers had picked up their prison, but Thundercracker had explained to them—staying well back from the bars—that they were going to help destroy the evil robot who was endangering them all, after which they shut up and adopted poses of bellicose determination. 

            "I'm your leader," Starscream reminded him, "I don't have to carry anything. Come on, stop dawdling. I want this femmebot removed from _my base at once."_

            His wingmates exchanged a look, but hefted the cage again and followed him down the corridor. Starscream's theoretical command over the Decepticons was currently slightly less of an issue than the destruction of Superia Prime.

            "Oh, slag," Skywarp muttered, as they approached the control room, beginning to sway. "It's near. It's really near. I don't feel so good..."

            "Aah, stop whining," said Starscream, whose wing still hurt badly enough to cut through the pink fog. "Laserbeak!"

            The cassette alighted on his good shoulder and squawked. "Laserbeak, take a look in the control room." He motioned to the other two Seekers to put the cage down, and watched as the spy-bot flew off around the corner in silent mode. 

            "Wish we had Soundwave here," muttered Thundercracker.

            "Shut up, TC. I don't need that uncharismatic oaf's help."

            Skywarp rubbed at his optics. Thundercracker shot him a concerned look, ignored by all except the Mary Sues, who had clustered over at his side of the cage and were making sympathetic noises. Starscream glared at them, but was distracted by Laserbeak's return. "Well?"

            "Target presence noted in control room," said Laserbeak in a monotone not unlike Soundwave's. "Central console."

            "Excellent." Starscream grinned nastily. "Decepticons, release the Mary Sues."

            Skywarp slid down the wall to sit in a heap on the floor, clutching his head, so it was Thundercracker who unlocked the cage and set the miniature army of buxom women free. At once, they poured out of the cage, spike heels clicking on the steel floor, and sprinted off in the direction Starscream indicated. "Destroy the enemy," he ordered them, and added for some reason "We're counting on you."

            "It's getting you too, Screamer," muttered Skywarp. "What the hell was that?"

            "Oh, be quiet."

            Thundercracker helped Skywarp to his feet. "What's the plan now, _Leader?" he inquired, with a decent imitation of the way Starscream normally referred to Megatron. _

            "The _plan, since you ask, is to go and find the rest of our forces and get rid of that incompetent heap of scrap metal Megatron once and for all."_

            Starscream didn't register the look on his wingmates' faces until a little too late; they weren't looking at him at all, but at something behind him. The cold barrel of a fusion cannon clanked softly against the back of Starscream's head.

            "What was that?" asked Megatron pleasantly. "I'm not sure I heard you."

            Starscream stiffened. "Er," he said. 

            Megatron took hold of his wing-stump with a grip that left finger-dents in the torn edges and turned him around so they were face to face. "I'm sorry, you'll have to repeat yourself," he said, still sounding pleasant. "I must be getting deaf in my incompetent and obsolete old age."

            "Er," said Starscream again, trying to think of something, anything, to say. Megatron's expression changed suddenly from mild curiosity to all-out rage—the shift was so rapid that it was frightening in itself. He let go of Starscream's ruined wing and picked the Seeker up by his throat. "This time you have gone too far, Starscream," he hissed. "Your insubordination reaches new heights. Give me one reason why I shouldn't crush you to pieces right now."

            Starscream couldn't, mostly because his voice modulator was being slowly compressed into scrap. He clawed at Megatron's wrist, ineffectively. 

            "Because..." said Skywarp slowly, behind Starscream, sounding deathly ill, "...Superia Prime's right behind you...."

            Megatron whirled, still holding Starscream several feet above the floor, and let the Seeker drop. Starscream crashed to the ground in a groaning heap. 

            The robot Mary Sue was standing with her hands on her hips, regarding all three of them with glowing golden optics. Her human counterparts were perched all over her, clinging to her shoulders, hanging from her decorative belt, sitting among the sculptured wings on her helmet. Megatron found himself thinking of a statue covered in pigeons, briefly, before most of his ability to think fell away.

            "You must stop," she said, her voice low and musical and sweet. It had strange buzzing harmonics to it, seeming to resonate oddly in the Decepticons' circuits, and despite Megatron's firm resolve not to fall under her spell, he began to feel the pink fog wrap around his mind once more. Skywarp fell to his knees with a dim crash of metal on metal, but neither Megatron, Starscream or Thundercracker paid any attention to him. Superia Prime took a step forward, smiling sweetly. 

            "I have joined with these humans," she continued. "They are my colleagues and my sisters. We will help you. Together we will help _all of you. We love you, and you will love us."_

            "...love..." repeated the Decepticons dully, their optics flickering. 

            "We will live happily ever after." The femmebot's voice was joined in chorus by the humans' voices. It wrapped around their minds, swirling, hypnotic, inescapable, compelling.

            "...ever after..."

            "We will be sensitive to one anothers' needs."

            "...needs..."

            "We will become so unbelievably saccharine that our bodies will undergo spontaneous transmogrification into marshmallow Peeps," said another voice, dryly. It cut through the pink fog like a null-ray blast. Alex stepped around the corner and stared up at the tableau. "Megatron?"

            The Decepticon leader blinked and looked down at her dully. She cursed.

            _A few moments before..._

            Alex had known she was getting close; she could smell the Mary Sues, a sweet mixture of violets and vanilla that made her feel rather sick, and she'd reached the corner just in time to hear Superia Prime's declaration of her alliance with the humans. _Well, bang goes that idea_, she thought sourly. _Now they're working together. Great. Wonderful. _

_            And I've got absolutely nothing that might knock it out. No firepower, no nothing. _

_            Megatron's cannon might possibly affect her, although I'd bet she's got magical girl-power shielding and all sorts of protection; her sort always do. And I sincerely doubt I can get him to fire it at her. Not point-blank, anyway. _

_            Hell. _

She paced, pulling the fur coat tighter around herself. _If only I could fly. I'd be able to distract her while someone else does the actual shooting, or something..._

She didn't notice for a moment that her feet were no longer touching the floor, until she made to sit down against the wall and realized she was sitting on air._ "Holy shit!" she breathed. _

            Unlike Arthur Dent, she seemed to be able to think about the fact that she was flying without disturbing her ability to do so. She jumped up and down experimentally in midair, and found that with a little bit of willpower she was able to zoom around the massive corridor like a slightly drunken yellowjacket. For a moment she almost forgot the dire situation just round the corner with the sudden exhilaration of flight; then she happened to catch a glimpse of gold and red, and nearly hit the wall as she banked and turned, dropping down to the floor. Never paid to show off your new magical powers to the enemy until you were ready to use them. 

            _Now (again)__ (in case you didn't know)..._

            "Damn," said Alex, and looked from Megatron to the Mary Sues. Superia Prime's lovely eyes narrowed, and the scent of violets and vanilla in the hall grew suddenly stronger. Alex winced as the Decepticons' heads turned back to Superia Prime as if drawn by tractor beams. _Some kind of pheromone?_

            She considered briefly, then raised a dramatic hand to her brow and pointed the other one at Superia Prime.  "—Look out behind you! It is the dread Nyarlathotep!"

            Superia Prime tilted her head. "The crawling chaos? The sightless vortex of the unimaginable? The dark king who shall come in the night from the east and you shall not know him?"

            "That's the bunny. He's right behind you! Use your special independent female powers! We are in danger!"

            Superia Prime turned around. The moment her back was turned, Alex leapt into the air, soaring up to Megatron's shoulder, and administered a healthy kick to the side of his helmet. He staggered a bit. "Your cannon!" she hissed. "Now! While she's not looking at you!"

            Megatron stared at her, and then shook his head, seeming to snap out of it. She jumped up and down on his shoulder, pointing at the Mary Sue, who was still regarding the corridor with a puzzled golden glare. "_Now_!" 

            The Decepticon leader stretched out his arm, his hand still limp, and Alex leapt on top of the cannon. She had seen something that looked like a firing stud, and she had no time to wonder if this was as stupid an idea as it must look; Superia Prime was turning back around, not having found Nyarlathotep despite a comprehensive examination of the corridor. She landed, and skidded down the barrel, reaching out and bringing down a fist on the firing stud.

            The world went pinkish-white. 

(A/N: Heh heh, cliffhanger. All will be revealed in the next and final excitingly stupid chapter of _A Plague of Mary Sues._)


End file.
